Derechos = Wreckos

Around 11am on Friday a derecho formed just west of Chicago.  Approximately 11-12 hours later it passed over my house, a distance of about 600 miles.  Wind gusts in the area were measured at 65-70 mph and nearly 1/2 million homes were without power immediately following the derecho’s passage. 

A derecho is a fast moving line of thunderstorms.  This one started out about 100 miles wide and was over 300 miles wide by the time it hit the Atlantic ocean.

We only lost power in my house for about 20 minutes total and although I wasn’t aware of how windy it was, I was most impressed by the amount of lightning.  You know when you see video of paparazzi taking photos of stars?  The nearly constant pop, pop, pop of flash(bulbs) that lights up the entire scene?  That’s what it was like on Friday night, nearly constant, flash after flash of lightning.  But not much thunder.  Very impressive.

We had a few larger branches down in the neighborhood and a lot of small branches and a bunch of leaves, but nothing that I would consider major damage.  We must have been one of the lucky neighborhoods, because there are still a lot of people without power two and a half days later.  The PEPCO spokesperson assured everyone that 90% of the affected homes would have their power restored by 11pm FRIDAY.  Uh, that’s seven days later.  I suspect that PEPCO’s rate increase request is not going to be granted if it takes them seven full days to restore power to a metropolitan, suburban area.

I’m being very good and I’m taking my naprosin twice a day.  My foot still hurts.  I’m going to make a decision tomorrow evening about next steps (no pun intended).  If I’ve not seen any improvement in the level of pain, I’ll use the referral my GP gave me and get an appointment with the orthopedist for a better look-see of what’s going on inside my foot.  Since I will be making my decision on the eve of the fourth of July, I won’t expect to get an appointment until Thursday or Friday at the very, very earliest.  That will give me a second chance to evaluate how the drug is working.

I spent most of Saturday relaxing and pretending that I would mow the lawn on Sunday, trim the hedges too.  Yeah, that didn’t happen.  I did walk around the yard and pick up stuff that I wouldn’t have wanted to run over with the lawnmower, but I realized that my foot is still too sore and it was way to hot, even at 10am.  The current heat wave broke today, so maybe I’ll muster up the energy to mow tonight?  Or, not.

Other than that, I’ve got nothing.

Ender is out.